Numb
by Spaceman727
Summary: (Rated T, but contains strong language.) (Spoiler Alert) Nathan Collins (Original Character) is a patient in a mental institution with personality disorders, left traumatised after losing his family. After mysterious events, he developed amnesia and forgot the events in his past, then being accepted into the institution. There he meets the beautiful Anna, and begins to find hope.
1. Chapter 1

_[Transcript from interview with patient Nathan Collins. Patient showed signs of Schizotypal and Avoidant personality disorders with suicidal behaviour also demonstrated.]_

_Dr Silberling: Nathan, I hear you've made a new friend today. Can you tell me about them?_

_Nathan: Yeah, the girl that's down the hall from me._

_Dr Silberling: Mildred?_

_Nathan: No, no, the pretty one. [Patient frowns hesitantly before remembering the name.] Anna, I think..._

_Dr Silberling: Anna Ivers?_

_Nathan: Yeah, that was it. [Patient displays an attempt at a smile and appears to relax]_

_Dr Silberling: You know, you and her have more in common than you might think._

_Nathan: I'm well aware of that. I presume you're talking about the suicide attempts._

_Dr Silberling: Well, other than that, you both lost family. Anna lost her mother in a fire, just like you lost your whole family in that car crash._

_Nathan: Maybe, but we both know that the car crash isn't why I'm here. But only one of us knows why I really am here. [Patient looks directly at Dr Silberling]_

_Dr Silberling: [Dr Silberling sighs] We've been through this Nathan, if you remember your own story you might have a chance of getting out of here, or at the very least understanding yourself instead of being the boy who doesn't know his own past. I want you to remember, I'm not trying to hide this from you. How about I give you a week to try and find some scrap of something from your past at least, and then I'll tell you everything._

_Nathan: I think you and I both know I'm far too broken to ever get out of here._

_Dr Silberling: Will you at least try?_

_Nathan: Ok. Fine. Can I go now?_

_[Dr Silberling nods and Nathan leaves]_

* * *

As Nathan headed for his room, he passed Anna walking towards Dr Silberling's office. Anna said nothing, but gave Nathan a warm smile. Nathan often cursed his own screwed up brain for hardly allowing him anything except for emotional numbness and tried his best to force a fake smile for Anna's sake. Anna saw through his attempt and instead of being offended, she laughed. This surprised Nathan. Or he supposed that was the right word for when something unexpected happens, he didn't really feel much of anything anymore. He didn't know if he ever had.

"You don't have to fake it for my sake. I'm just as fucked up as you are, it's not like you can help it." Anna smiled.

"Somehow, I don't think you're anywhere near my level of fucked up." Nathan said, flatly.

"You might be surprised…" Anna teased.

Nathan let out a flat laugh.

Anna hesitated before realising how what she'd said might be ironic to Nathan.

"Oh… Yeah. I'm gonna keep doing this, aren't I?" She said.

"Probably." Nathan nodded.

"I'd better go now." Anna said, indicating towards Dr Silberling's door.

"Me too." Nathan said, turning away.

"I'll see you around." Anna called out to Nathan.

"It's not like I'm going anywhere." Nathan replied, not even turning back to look at Anna as he spoke.

Nathan entered his small room, similar to something university students might have found themselves in: a blank room with a cheap wooden desk with a chair and a bed. He looked at the phone his sister owned before she died, the only thing on the desk. Nathan hadn't even bothered with it before; he couldn't remember anything so it couldn't have made a difference. But something, some kind of notion of purpose drove him to press the standby button and turn it on. Nathan had charged the phone when the battery died, but since he lost all memories of his past, it was a useless relic of something he didn't even have any connection to since having emotional numbness thrown in and so had no sense of compulsion to even try and use it. The photo that greeted him was of his sister, a tall, beautiful girl of about 19 with light brown hair, and him, his mess of brown-blonde hair with a huge grin cracking across his fairly handsome features. They seemed very happy and seeing this led Nathan to believe that she and him had been very close before her death. He tried to get past the home screen and was greeted by another screen asking for a password. He tried putting her name in "Alice". The phone rejected it. Nathan sighed, the only other connection to her was himself, and that was very nearly a dead end anyway. She probably knew more about him than he did anyway. So he entered his name. To his surprise… No, not surprise, his dull disbelief it actually opened.

He found a menu of music open and on the song Alice had been listening to before she died. Nathan plugged the small white earbuds in and heard silence for joining a few seconds, which was then joined by static and guitar feedback with soft, sustained guitar notes of a low pitch in before a slow drum beat was introduced and some electronic organs in the background as a haunted voice began to sing introspective lyrics in a sorrowful tone. Something about it connected with Nathan, the guitar distortion and the sheer depression the singer seemed to reflect. And then the drums picked up slightly, throwing a louder snare and some cymbals into the song. Nathan was bowled over by something. A feeling, of all things. And images began entering his head, and then they began to move. Memories. They were fractured and disjointed, not meaning anything to him, but he felt a sorrow at the loss of his sister he couldn't remember having felt before, even though he knew he had. Another song came on, this one with a different atmosphere to it. Starting off with ethereal electronics and an upbeat harmony. Nathan looked at the display; it was the same band as before. And Nathan couldn't help but think of Anna. How beautiful she truly was, even though he'd never really appreciated it before. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to kiss her, to hold her and to run his fingers through her smooth black hair. Nathan then realised he was in love. This hadn't been sudden; he probably felt it before he'd really gotten to know her. He just hadn't known it. There must be a difference between not feeling something and not knowing that you are feeling something. The song stopped and he turned the device off after switching the password to "Anna". He felt numb again, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Nathan fell into a deep sleep, seeing disturbed and unsettling images that would have terrified most people. But Nathan was not most people, since what he was experiencing was his first series of what everyone else called nightmares, yet he had no fear.


	2. Chapter 2

_Dr Silberling: So Nathan, can you tell me about what you did yesterday?_

_Nathan: I found my sister's music player on her phone. I listened to the same song she listened to as she died._

_Dr Silberling: And did that have any effect on you?_

_Nathan: Uh, yeah. I started seeing things, small flashes of life before… you know… _

_Dr Silberling: What did they contain?_

_Nathan: Just being with my sister, I think we must have been close._

_Dr Silberling: What brought you to that conclusion?_

_Nathan: The nature of the stuff I saw. And my name was the password for it._

_Dr Silberling: Well, it's something. I don't want to take that away from you, but you've barely scratched the surface yet. I want you to keep trying._

_Nathan: I also had nightmares last night._

_Dr Silberling: [Appears shocked] Were you scared? Did you feel fear?_

_Nathan: No, but I know it was the kind of thing everyone else would fear. It was a lot of strange image. Most seemed to represent some kind of threat, not that I felt threatened._

_Dr Silberling: Was there an area of comfort within this constant threat?_

_Nathan: Yes. Anna._

_[Dr Silberling left speechless]_

_Nathan: [Rolls eyes] Can I go now?_

_Dr Silberling: Yes, I suppose so…_

_[Nathan leaves]_

* * *

Nathan passed Anna again on the way back to his room. He made an effort to pretend like it was hard to keep a straight face and not fake a smile at her. She giggled at this. Nathan realised he felt a kind of small happiness when he heard her laugh. Satisfaction, he supposed.

"Do you want to meet me in my room after I've spoken to Silberling?" Anna inquired.

"Ok. Any idea how long you'll be?" Nathan asked.

"Probably about an hour or so. He's so clingy, you'd almost think he didn't want me to commit suicide or have a mental breakdown." Anna said sarcastically, with a small laugh.

Nathan still didn't have the ability to even fake a realistic laugh yet, but Anna didn't seem to mind.

"That's good. I had something I should do first." Nathan said.

"Ooh, sounds interesting." Anna teased.

"I'll explain when I see you." Nathan said.

"Ok. See you later." Anna said, playfully.

Nathan broke eye contact with Anna although he didn't really want to. "That was strange… I actually wanted something for once." Nathan thought as he walked away.

Nathan returned to his room and picked up his sister's phone. He decided to play as many of the songs his sister had on the device as he could. He somehow remembered that there was a function to make the phone randomly select the next song from everything it contained. Nathan put the earphones in and laid on the bed listening to the music. He heard a static sound that was quiet yet aggressive and strange echoing notes that held a strange resonance. He felt almost threatened. Then a calmer organ-type melody broke in with chimes and fractured vocals. He heard a muted drum beat, similar to what was often played in clubs. One of the patients at the institution did DJ sets with tech from home in the social room on Saturday nights. The room had been soundproofed to avoid disturbing the rest of the patients that didn't want to go or may become agitated by the loud music. The song kind of sounded like that, but with darker tones, more atmosphere, subtlety and threat with maybe even a slower tempo. The song broke down and as a note sang by the vocalist distorted into an almost cut off scream, a deep bass cut through and the beat started again. The song continued like that for all of 30 seconds or so before completely stopping with a shot of crackling static closer to that of a record scratching against the needle of an old player. Nathan was caught in the atmosphere completely. He looked at the display. He had to know who this was. It was by Burial. Nathan seemed to know a familiarity, most likely from his sister mentioning it. The song was called Rough Sleeper. Nathan was in an entirely new place for the 14-minute duration of the song. The breaks of static and subtle melody changes combined with the subtle but complex percussion and strange vocal cuts excited him. He had to tell Anna about this. Nathan decided to leave the rest of the music for another day. He needed to hear more. As the song finished and he found a full album by this artist he remembered the first time he saw Anna. Dancing and swaying gently to one of the calmer songs the DJ had played one Saturday night. Her eyes were closed and she had been in what Nathan could only think to have been a similar place to where he was now. She looked totally confident and had a strangely ethereal beauty to her at this point. The dim lights bringing a soft illumination while she danced around the room, her features looked delicate, and her skin like porcelain. Nathan still didn't understand how someone like Anna could end up in a place like the institution.

Once Nathan was brought back into the real world again he saw that Anna was most likely about done with her session with Dr Silberling. He took the phone with him as he stood outside the door to Anna's room listening to some more music before she showed up. As he saw her walking down the corridor he could have sworn that she was smiling to herself. It was a subtle expression, but Nathan had taught himself to read other people's emotions well in the hopes that it might help him understand his apparent lack of them for the most part. Anna's effect on him was getting stronger and stronger every minute he spent around her, and it was the first emotion he had identified in himself since his Avoidant personality disorder caved and gave way to this emotional flatness. His suicide attempts and constant self-harm had been attempts to feel something: anything at all. But it still hadn't worked, and his arm had paid the price, scars zigzagged up his arm almost to his shoulder from where he cut himself, trying to invoke a reaction deeper than pain. Not that Nathan let Dr Silberling know that he had a deeper understanding of his situation than he led the doctor to believe. He only told the good doctor what Nathan felt he needed to know. Nathan wore long-sleeve shirts now to make sure Dr Silberling didn't know that he still cut himself and partly so that Anna wouldn't see what he had really done to himself, he thought it might upset her. And for some reason, upsetting Anna was something Nathan cared enough not to do. Not that he was malicious, just uncaring. He usually said whatever the fuck he wanted, because he didn't really give a shit about what anyone felt. Nathan snapped out of his trance as he noticed Anna standing right in front of him.

"How long have you been there?" Nathan asked her, as he removed the earphones and placed them in his pocket.

"Long enough." Anna laughed.

Nathan noticed his hand had shifted his shirtsleeve up as he subconsciously ran his fingers over the scars that covered his arm. Anna's eyes fell to his arm, having brought it to her attention when he tried to hide it. Nathan had been right; she looked upset now that she saw what he'd done.

"Got a tattoo sleeve going on there?" Anna said, trying to joke, but her voice broke as she talked.

"Uh, yeah. Didn't want the parents to know." Nathan said, hoping his attempt at a joke and passing it off as nothing might soothe Anna a little.

Anna instead took his arm and ran her fingers across his scars tenderly. It was such a caring gesture, Nathan was feeling more than something small but constant for Anna. He wanted to kiss her right there and then, and his heart was pounding. Anna didn't stop but instead stepped past Nathan to open the door to her room and drag him in. Anna closed the door and Nathan pulled her into a long kiss. His nerves were instantly calmed by her gentleness and willingness to reciprocate the kiss. Anna was breathing heavily and caught up in a wild haze of passion and disbelief. As she pulled away and practically fell on her bed, Nathan looked worried.

"What the fuck even is this? I didn't think you could feel anything. Now you kiss me? Your emotions are working overtime." Anna said, still breathing heavily.

"It's complicated. Are you ok?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah. I just… I need some space, ok?" Anna requested.

"Did I do something wrong? I really don't want to have fucked this up." Nathan replied.

"No. At least, I don't think so. It's just a lot to take in." Anna said with a sigh.

"Ok. I'll go." Nathan said.

"Thank you." Anna said, almost irritated.

Nathan left and closed the door behind him. He walked into his room and started listening to music again, cursing himself and thinking about Anna. He was daydreaming so deeply that it was almost impossible for him to tell when exactly he had stopped daydreaming and had fallen into a dream filled sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

_Dr Silberling: So, Nathan. Have there been any changes since I last saw you?_

_Nathan: Yeah. [Sighs] I kissed Anna. In regards to everything else, nothing new._

_Dr Silberling: And what happened after that?_

_Nathan: We both froze up and I left. That was it._

_Dr Silberling: And how did you feel about that?_

_Nathan: Regretful. Not that I was supposed to feel anything at all. I've been feeling a lot today. Yesterday there was a bit. I think the kiss triggered it._

_Dr Silberling: How did you know that's what you were feeling?_

_Nathan: I've taught myself to identify emotions in others so I'm not as overwhelmed if I ever was to feel again. I would understand what was happening. It also makes it easier to fake empathy._

_Dr Silberling: Why would you fake empathy?_

_Nathan: Oh, come on. Let me ask you something, Doctor. Why do YOU fake empathy?_

_Dr Silberling: I don't know what you mean by that._

_Nathan: I see everyone do it. All human beings do, keeping up appearances I suppose. It's very rare that they actually give a fuck. Why? It makes us more animalistic than any other creature on the whole damned planet. We're innately selfish; pretending to care is another selfish act to save our own skin. We're narcissistic. The only difference between all of you and actual narcissists is that most of them are genuine. They couldn't care less about anything except themselves, but I respect them for not bothering to pretend otherwise. The rest of you are like a disease. Manipulating and forcing people to think you care for your own benefit. If that's what it is to be normal: to feed off of others until you leave them empty like fucking parasites because all you want to do is gain from others, I really don't want to be normal._

_[Nathan leaves]_

* * *

Nathan returned to his room and saw Anna lying on his bed.

"Can I help you?" Nathan asked, sighing.

"Come on. You've been avoiding me all day." Anna whined.

"Come spend some time with me." She begged, patting the bed.

"How do I know you're not like the rest of these goddamned parasites?" Nathan asked, angrily.

"You sound sexy when you're angry." Anna said, seductively.

"Besides, we're not like that." Anna added.

"What?" Nathan asked.

"Nothing. I'm not like that, I said." Anna corrected herself.

"Don't you have an appointment with Silberling?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah, but I'm not going." Anna said.

Nathan just raised an eyebrow.

"Don't worry, they won't come looking for me. They really don't care." Anna said, comfortingly.

"Ok, fine. Whatever." Nathan replied.

Nathan plugged his sister's phone into the speaker system for his computer and played the song he'd discovered the day before.

"You know this?" Nathan asked, looking at Anna for a reaction.

"Burial? Fuck yeah! That shit's awesome, man." Anna said.

"Oh." Nathan said, disappointed. He was hoping it was new to her so he could see her reaction. Nathan put on the band he'd been first listening to when he opened the phone. Anna laughed.

"What the fuck is this?" Anna asked.

"Something I found recently." Nathan said.

"Switch it off." Anna ordered. Nathan complied, and started to try and find something else.

"You haven't done this before, have you?" Anna asked.

"Done what?" Nathan asked.

"Spent time with a girlfriend." Anna said.

"Not that I can remember. Not like that's much to go by..." Nathan answered.

"No, I mean SPENT TIME. You know?" Anna asked.

"What?" Nathan asked, confused.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Are you a virgin?" Anna asked, fed up.

"I really don't know. Probably not." Nathan replied.

Anna laughed.

"What do you mean 'Probably not'?"

"Just look at me, you think I look like a virgin?" Nathan joked.

Anna laughed even more.

"Well, if you are, I want to change that." Anna said running her hand down his chest.

"I think it's pretty soon for that, don't you? I don't think I'm ready." Nathan said.

"You'll change your mind in a minute..." Anna said as she started to take off her shirt.

"Anna, stop." Nathan said firmly.

Anna threw her shirt on the floor playfully and was about to take off her short skirt when Nathan picked the shirt up and handed it to her. She was still trying to take off her skirt. The sight of her half naked nearly had Nathan overcome by something. He was reeling, but he still had sense. It hadn't taken him yet.

"Your turn." She said, giggling and beckoning him with her finger.

"Get out." He ordered.

"You're gonna regret this." Anna said, grumpily

"Get out!" Nathan yelled.

Anna listened this time, pulling on her shirt.

"You're just like the others, you said you weren't like them." Nathan whispered weakly.

"I know." Anna whispered back, tears drying on her cheek. Then she left.

Nathan listened to some more music for the rest of the day, trying to find something that reflected his venomous mood. He never did, drifting off to sleep quickly.

His nightmares returned, and this time he was scared. He saw a line of people stood on a bridge holding guns to their heads. They each fired and fell, one after the other. Until it was his turn. He felt his hands shaking; the weight of the gun was too much. He couldn't move it away, but pulling the trigger was up to him still. The inevitability of it terrified Nathan; he turned around to see Anna half naked as she had been in his room. Once again, she beckoned him playfully with her finger.

"Your turn." She said, calmly.


	4. Chapter 4

_Dr Silberling: So, Anna told me about everything that happened after our session yesterday. Care to elaborate?_

_Nathan: She started taking her clothes off in front of me. I didn't want her to, but she kept going. Well, part of me wanted her to, but that's just instinctual, I fought it back. I told her to stop and she ignored me._

_Dr Silberling: I know. She told me. I'm sending her home today. There's obviously nothing left for her here. I just thought you would want to know._

_Nathan: Yeah. Are you sure that's best and not just doing it for my sake? I will focus on my task from now on if you want._

_Dr Silberling: No, you're not responsible for this. Anna has nothing left that any of us can do for her. She's fine now._

_Nathan: [Smirks] Whatever you say, Sir._

_Dr Silberling: You're free to go._

_[Nathan Leaves]_

* * *

Nathan still couldn't get the image of Anna out of his head. He knew it wasn't right to let it go any further, but he had actually been enjoying Anna's exhibitionism. Anna was right, he regretted stopping her. It had been all he could do not to tear the rest of her clothes off, but he knew that he would regret either decision. Anna had put him in that position and he both hated her and loved her for it.

As he walked down the same corridor as always from Dr Silberling's office, feeling an inner conflict and a tangible melancholy. It felt beautifully dark inside his head, and the moody atmospheric music he had fallen in love with had a deeper connection to him than ever.

Nathan sat on his bed with his sister's phone, listening to various aggressive or moody tracks, until an acoustic ballad laced with electronics appeared. A certain line hit his emotions with a huge weight: "I cherish my loss/A gentle reminder/That life is unkind at the best of times"

He looked at the photo of his sister and scraps of his previous life came flooding back. There was an echo of his story reverberating through his brain. He remembered his sister. His dear Alice.

"We were inseparable..." He thought to himself.

"Had been inseparable." He corrected. And he couldn't help but shed a tear for his sister.

He remembered the endless hours they spent together talking about their lives: music, girls (or boys in Alice's case), and their many experiences. Nathan remembered his parents, penniless and struggling to provide just for one of their children, let alone both. But they gave everything they had to give their children as comfortable and carefree a life as they could afford to. His parents worked hard and loved their children more than anything on the Earth. He remembered that his father had saved up for two years just to buy Alice a prom dress and a further six months to buy Nathan a suit and tie for a job interview at the local supermarket. He remembered that day completely. Nathan's dad fastened his tie at the door just before he left

"I'm so proud of you, son. And I know you're going to make me even prouder, if that's possible." Nathan's father said with a beaming smile. Nathan hugged his father close. This job meant everything to all of them. It could help provide an easier life for all of them. It wouldn't be much to most, but it would be everything to them.

"I will. For you, Mom and Alice." Nathan promised. His mother was waiting in the car to drive him to the interview.

As Nathan left the car his mother wept at seeing her youngest child all grown up and ready to be a man. He felt confident. As far as the interview went, he aced it. They practically fell over trying to give him the job. Nathan accepted to start in two weeks' time.

His family was in the car, driving to meet him from the interview. As they approached the supermarket they slowed down. Nathan waved at them and gave them an encouraging thumbs up and a huge grin to tell them the result. His family exploded in a cheer he could hear from the sidewalk he was sat upon. They were about to pull over when a huge oil tanker swerved from around the corner, lost control and tipped over, crushing the small car and his family inside it. Nathan screamed and sobbed and yelled, cursing every god he knew of in-between his hysterical tears.

Nathan was lost. He felt the same desperation and hysterical sorrow. It was like losing them all over again. Combined with the loss of his final source of hope: Anna, he felt pathetic. Nathan cried himself to sleep that night.


	5. Chapter 5

[One week later]

Anna was distraught, like her whole world had collapsed from underneath her. Everything she had thought was true was completely wrong. Alex was dead. And it was Anna's fault, just like her Mom's death. She'd tried to burn her father and his lover to death. And then she finished the job. That simply wasn't her. Or at least, not how she knew herself. She'd destroyed the lives of everyone she cared about. Alex, Mom, Dad, Nathan. She couldn't help it. She hadn't been Anna Ivers for a while. She felt a duality in her day-to-day life, like someone else was controlling her most of the time. She had no influence over her own actions. What was it? …Multiple personality disorder? Maybe, but she thought it manifested itself differently. It didn't seem to reflect anything Dr Silberling had told her about her schizophrenia. Back in her small room in the institution, she was beginning to understand the true weight of what she had done. She couldn't have felt worse than she did. She would have hated herself if she knew who the hell she really was. The Anna she had been for the majority of her life was certainly not the Anna she was now. Was she even Anna in any way other than physically anymore? She needed to start making this right. First, she would cut out whatever malicious part of herself that kept driving her to do these things that were not like her at all. Then, she would do all she could to amend things with Nathan. Unless this other Anna took over before she could. It wasn't like she'd ever get out of here now. She had all the time in the world…


End file.
